Beetee's Games
by Anna Marchen
Summary: The man who won his games with electricity. The man who built an unbreakable defence system for the Capitol. The man who destroyed it.


_If you recognise it, it's not mine._

* * *

I was picked for the games when I was seventeen years old. My hands shook as I climbed the stairs to the stage, although I tried to stop them. My partner was a fifteen year old who I recognised because she'd won a prize at school a few weeks ago, for inventing a machine which could piece together the most complex of puzzles, at the same time destroying an identical puzzle. The Capitol judges had praised the delicacy, the duality of it, and it probably sits on one of their shiny desks now, building and destroying, over and over again.

We arrived at the Capitol amid cheering crowds. Our chariot rides, training, interviews and private sessions passed quickly.

I don't like to talk about the games.

It was a desert, with very little cover. Many people were killed on that first day, including my district partner. I escaped by hiding in the Cornucopia, filling a backpack with anything I thought might be useful, and ran as the other Careers entered. I had never been one for teamwork.

That night, as the air grew colder, I searched through my supplies. I had a blanket, food, water, and the one thing which could save me, tucked away in a deep corner of the Cornucopia; a long, thick wire cable. The anthem started to play, and I watched the faces flash by. A part of my mind wondered how they projected it into the sky like that. Another part of me mourned the girl from District Three, the girl who had built such an ingenious and yet such a pointless machine. Her name was Etta. Even now I remember.

It took me days to turn the wire into something I could use. I kept to the few shady bushs or outcrops of rock by day, and moved during the freezing night. By the third day I was almost out of water. By some miracle, nobody had found me, but I could tell I was running out of time. At least one cannon went of every night, and a few during the day, but whether they were dying of cold or had been hunted down, I had no way of knowing.

I found water bubbling through a small crevice in a rock. I returned daily to refill my water bottle, although the task wasted valuable time.

I spent most of my time unravelling the thick cable I'd found in the Cornucopia. It was made up of hundreds of smaller cables bundled together. Cautiously, I fixed these into long, thing lines, laying them end to end around my camp like a net of sorts. I think I must have been the least shown victor in the games; where's the excitement in a boy unravelling twists of wire?

By the time the Careers came for me, we were the only ones left. I never have figured out how they didn't found me earlier. It wasn't as if the large rock I camped beneath wasn't visible in this flat desert. I saw them coming from a long way off, and prepared myself.

I stood several metres away from my almost invisible net. The Careers noticed me very soon after that, and sprinted towards me, yelling viciously. As they drew closer, I turned and ran across my net, careful not to disturb the wires. As soon as the last Career stepped in, I knocked two stones together. A spray of sparks jumped to the end of the wire. For a moment I thought it hadn't worked, and then the ground in front of me crackled with electricity, and my chasers fell to the ground. Their swords and knives clattered out of their hands as they convulsed, and I remember waiting for it to stop, and wondering what would happen if I stepped into the electric net myself. Cannons fired one by one, and the hovercraft descended amid trumpets.

I had won.

After that, I mentored for several years. Some went better than others. I can barely talk about what happened to Wiress, the girl who won her Games in a horrible accident aged just fourteen. All I can say is that I didn't help as much as I could, as much as I should have. I care for her now, translating the world she cannot exist in properly anymore.

In my spare time, of which I had plenty, I invented things. Silly gadgets for the people of the Capitol, things which showed pictures and played music. I was asked to design their security system, a powerful one which could keep out anything.

I obliged, although I wondered why they needed such an elaborate defence. None of the Districts had the means to break into even a basic system.

When Haymitch Abernathy asked for help, most of the District Three mentors agreed. And yet it was Wiress and I who were chosen in the Reaping. Nuts and Volts. The person with almost no ability to defy the Capitol and the person who has done the most for them.

Now I work for District Thirteen. I try to break into the Capitol the only way I know- through their technology. It's like playing a game against yourself, trying to think of ways to break what you thought was unbreakable.

I will win.

I built this system.

I can destroy it.


End file.
